Awards
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When Nicki Minaj first took home the BET Award for best female hip-hop artist, the 2010s had just begun, Barack Obama was enjoying the halfway point of his presidential term, and the Queens rapper was mere months away from unleashing Pink Friday, her much-anticipated debut studio album, upon the world.
The 2010 race was Minaj’s to lose; her fellow nominees — while all talented in their own rights — simply could not match the “Bedrock” breakout star’s momentum. Ester Dean, an instrumental collaborator on Minaj’s 2011 hit “Super Bass,” could only boast the Chris Brown-featuring “Drop It Low” as her sole single as a lead artist going into the June 2010 ceremony. Lil’ Kim, who picked up three prior nominations in this category between 2001 and 2006, had not released a studio album in five years, due to her finishing out her prison sentence. Rasheeda was coming off her first Billboard 200-charting album, Certified Hot Chick (No. 89), but she was nowhere near the burgeoning crossover sensation that Minaj was at the time. Finally, Trina headed into the race off the strength of her No. 13-peaking Amazin’ album, and she had not placed a single as a lead artist on the Hot 100 in half a decade. Minaj, who was riding high on massively successful singles like Ludacris’ “My Chick Bad” and her own “Your Love,” was the inevitable victor.
Nicki Minaj’s 2010 best female hip-hop artist victory was the beginning of seven consecutive years of domination. While she faced formidable opponents in some of those years (Azealia Banks, Iggy Azalea, Young M.A., and DeJ Loaf among them), Minaj just as often faced competitors that were laughably out of her league in terms of commercial and cultural impact. Take her 2011 victory against “B.B. (Boss Bitch)” rapper LoLa Monroe, or her triumph the following year over “Shake It to the Ground” rapper Rye Rye. Nicki’s victories became so predictable that her “fake surprised” reactions to her wins became a running jokeon social media.
Even before Nicki’s streak began, however, the best female hip-hop artist category was in something of a drought. The category was suspended for the 2007 ceremony, and the 2009 ceremony boasted just three nominees in the category. In the years following her streak, Minaj remained a fixture in the category, but faced heartier competition from the likes of Remy Ma (who won in 2017), Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion (both of whom have bested Minaj twice in the past five years).
This year’s lineup, which features seven of the most successful and defining women in contemporary hip-hop — the largest number of nominees the category has seen in its 22-year existence — is a far cry from the uneven playing field of 2010. In fact, it is a lineup where, for the first time in some years, every nominee is a genuinely plausible winner. Comprised of Minaj, Cardi B, Coi Leray, Ice Spice, GloRilla, Megan Thee Stallion and Latto, this year’s best female hip-hop artist lineup boasts a rising generation of female rap talent, as well as the two now-iconic artists who helped paved the way for them.
The bulk of this year’s nominees are the progeny of a combination of Minaj’s Top 40 navigation skills and Cardi B’s social media savvy, making them worthy competitors to the two previous victors. Moreover, this year’s lineup reveals the ways in which hip-hop’s emphasis on regionality has helped bolster the simultaneous sustained mainstream success of multiple female rappers, after so many years where a single artist towered over the conversation, for better or for worse.
Ahead of this Sunday’s BET Awards, Billboard breaks down the resumes of this historic group of best female hip-hop artist nominees and their respective cases for taking home this award.
GloRilla
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Dr. Dre, the trailblazing hip-hop hitmaker, will blaze a new trail at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards, where he will receive the very first ASCAP Hip-Hop Icon Award.
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Announced today (June 20), Dre will be honored at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards Celebration of 50 Years of Hip-Hop, set to take place in his hometown, Los Angeles on Thursday, June 22.
“Dr. Dre’s groundbreaking early work laid a foundation for hip-hop as we know it today. As a champion for some of today’s biggest artists and a successful entrepreneur, he changed the culture around hip-hop,” comments ASCAP chairman of the board and president Paul Williams.
The award is presented to ASCAP members whose musical contributions have made an indelible impact on the art and culture of hip-hop. Currently, ASCAP’s membership includes 920,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers.
Dre “continues to be a pivotal figure in the music industry,” adds Williams, “and we are thrilled to recognize him with the inaugural ASCAP Hip-Hop Icon Award as we mark 50 years of hip-hop.”
In the electrifying world of hip-hop, which this year celebrates its half-century and is now recognized as the U.S. market share leader, Dre has done it all.
A founding member of Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inductees N.W.A, Dre is recognized as one of the genre’s pre-eminent producers, as well as a rapper and songwriter who has worked with some of the most iconic R&B and hip-hop artists of all time, including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 2Pac, Mary J. Blige, Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent and Kendrick Lamar.
After changing the game with seminal gangsta rap outfit N.W.A in the 1980s, Dre released his first solo album, The Chronic, in 1992, a classic that’s regarded as one of hip-hop’s finest and a beacon for the West Coast G-Funk movement.
His three studio albums, which include 2001 and Compton, have amassed some 20 million album consumption units.
Dre also established Aftermath Entertainment, his own imprint through Interscope, through which he would sign Eminem, 50 Cent, Lamar and Anderson .Paak, among others.
In 2006, Dre co-founded Beats Electronics alongside Interscope co-founder Jimmy Iovine. Later, in 2014, the business evolved with a streaming service, Beats Audio, and was subsequently acquired by Apple for upwards of $3 billion, turning Dre into hip-hop’s first billionaire.
N.W.A was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2016, a year after the Straight Outta Compton biopic hit theaters around the globe. In February 2022, another career highlight when Dre teamed up with Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent for the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show.
Grammy Award-winner DJ Kid Capri will provide the music on ASCAP’s big night, organizers say. Visit ASCAP for more.
These six radio mainstays have all earned iHeartRadio Titanium Awards for their songs that reached 1 billion spins across iHeart stations in 2022, Billboard can exclusively reveal. iHeartMedia revealed the Titanium Award-winning songs on Tuesday (June 20), including Doja Cat‘s “Woman,” Ed Sheeran‘s “Shivers,” Jack Harlow‘s “First Class,” Latto‘s “Big Energy” and Wizkid and Tems‘ “Essence.” Sheeran was honored with his award while visiting iHeartRadio in New York recently. “Wowzas,” the 32-year-old […]
Two years ago, the Recording Academy made headlines when it disbanded its controversial “nominations review committees.” So, you may be surprised to learn that in 16 of the 94 categories on the 2024 ballot, committees will still determine the final nominees.
What’s going on here? These are “craft committees,” not “nominations review committees” – though they function in the same way. Typically, these committees are presented with a list of the top 30 choices by rank-and-file voting members. They may choose any five entries they wish from that list. Those become the nominees.
In fact, the Academy is moving two more categories – best music film and best music video – under the umbrella of “craft committees” for the upcoming 66th Annual Grammy Awards. Previously, the nominees in these two categories were determined by rank-and-file voters.
In a Recording Academy-sponsored video released last week, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. explained to rapper Cordae how and why the Academy disbanded its nominations review committees. But in so doing, he left the impression that all committees were a thing of the past, which is not the case.
Here’s what Mason told Cordae: “But as of two years ago, we removed all committees so there are no committees making any decisions. The Academy and the Grammy body is not making any decisions. The voters – 13,000 – vote. The top five-eight-10 vote getters, depending on the category, are considered the nominees. That short list goes back to the same voters. They vote and the top vote-getter wins. Period. Point blank. No other interference. No other effects taking place.”
Mason was likely drawing a distinction in his own mind between “nominations review committees” and “craft committees.” But few outside of the Academy grasp the difference.
(Another point: There are no more categories with 10 nominees. The Academy dropped the number of nominees in each of its Big Four categories to eight. This video may have been taped before that rule tweak took place.)
Earlier this week, Mason shared with Billboard the reason for having craft committees determine the nominees for producer of the year, non-classical and songwriter of the year, non-classical. “The reason craft committees are still employed here is because these nominations are really based on large bodies of work. Anything else in the process is really about a song or a record or a performance and we feel the voters can spend the time to listen to that song/performance and evaluate it. [But here] in order to make sure we’re getting this right, the idea of the craft committee spending the hours and hours it takes to listen to just one potential nominee’s material is worth it to make sure we get it right.”
According to the Academy, all members of craft committees must be voting members of the Academy in the membership class which corresponds to the craft they are being submitted to judge. All must have filled out a documentation form listing six tracks or albums for which they have a credit corresponding to the craft they are being submitted to judge. The credits must be for recordings released in the previous five years.
Committee members may serve a maximum of eight consecutive years. At least 25% of each committee must turn over from the previous year’s committee.
Here are the 16 categories on the 2024 Grammy ballot where the nominees will be determined by craft committees. The first frame lists categories where the committee draws from lists of the voters’ top 30 choices. The second frame lists categories where the committee chooses the nominees without any voter involvement. In both cases, the categories are listed in the order they appear on the Grammy ballot.
Committees Choose the Final Nominees Drawn from Voters’ Top 30 Picks in These 10 Categories:
The Recording Academy is dropping the number of fields on the Grammy ballot from 26 to 11 in an effort to give voters more flexibility in their voting. All Grammy voters can vote in the General Field, which has long consisted of record, album and song of the year, plus best new artist. As of […]
A track and singles category that includes recordings that utilize unique local expressions from across the African continent. Highlighting regional melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic musical traditions, the category includes but is not limited to the Afrobeat, Afro fusion, Afro Pop, Afrobeats, Alte, Amapiano, Bongo Flava, Genge, Kizomba, Chimurenga, High Life, Fuji, Kwassa, Ndombolo, Mapouka, Ghanaian Drill, Afro-House, South African Hip Hop, and Ethio Jazz genres.
Previously, such performances competed for best global music performance, a category that will continue, albeit without African music performances.
Told that some critics have said that one category isn’t enough for an entire continent, Mason responds, “I don’t disagree. It’s a starting point, though. It’s a way for us to celebrate music that’s coming from that continent which is really impressive.”
The larger significance of this new award is that it shows that the Academy, which was founded and long known as the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, is taking a more international view.
“It’s an acknowledgment that music is coming from many different places and that we as an Academy are going to have to make some changes to what we’re doing to make sure we’re honoring it,” Mason says. “It’s not just about Western music. It’s not just about what happens in the U.S. at this point. It’s beyond that. It’s what’s happening around the world. You’ll see us in the future listening and going to different countries. I went to Africa three times in the last year, traveling the world to understand what’s happening, what’s next in music, where are music pockets bubbling, where is the next scene that’s going to explode globally. What does it mean to have borderless music? This is a step in that direction.”
GloRilla, who tied with Drake for most nominations for the 2023 BET Awards, is set to perform on the show, which airs live on BET on Sunday, June 25, at 8 p.m. ET/ PT. Lil Uzi Vert, Doechii and Coco Jones are also set to perform on the show, with more performers to be announced.
The centerpiece of the show will be a 50th anniversary celebration of hip-hop. Artists set for that segment are 69 Boyz, Big Daddy Kane, Chief Keef, DJ Unk, E-40, Fast Life Yungstaz & Easton (F.L.Y.), Fat Joe, Ja Rule, Kid ‘N Play, MC Lyte, Percy “Master P” Miller, Remy Ma, Soulja Boy, The Sugarhill Gang, Trick Daddy, Trina, Tyga, Uncle Luke, Warren G, Ying Yang Twins and Yo-Yo.
“We have an incredible lineup of performers who will take us on a musical journey, covering hip-hop spanning every decade, style, and region,” Connie Orlando, BET evp, specials, music programming & music strategy said in a statement. “From music to dance and fashion, we are digging through every crate as we celebrate 50 years of hip-hop and its diversity, evolution, and global impact.”
Orlando will oversee and executive produce the annual show, with Jamal Noisette, vp, specials, music programming & music strategy to co-executive produce for BET. Jesse Collins Entertainment is the production company for the show, with Collins, Dionne Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay also serving as executive producers.
Last year, GloRilla took home best breakthrough hip-hop artist of the year award at the BET Hip Hop Awards.
Following GloRilla and Drake, who each received seven nominations, 21 Savage and Lizzo each received five nods, followed by Beyoncé, Burna Boy, Chris Brown, Ice Spice and SZA with four nods each.
The BET Awards has been the No. 1 cable award show among all adults 18-49 for the last two years and is the No. 1 cable award show among Black adults 18-49 for the 21st consecutive year (CY02-CY22).
Voting for BET Awards 2023 Viewer’s Choice Award ends June 25 at 6:30 p.m. PT/ 9:30 p.m. ET. Cast your vote on BET’s website.
The Recording Academy’s approach to dance/electronic music has long been a mixed bag, with the Grammys attempting to cram the genre’s often extremely different sounds and styles into its pair of dance/electronic categories for best recording and album.
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Now the Recording Academy has taken a major step forward in its approach to the expansive genre with its addition of best pop dance recording. On Tuesday (June 13), the academy announced this new category, along with other new categories for best African music performance and best alternative jazz album.
“This is the biggest victory for dance music at the Grammys in almost 20 years, since the addition of the dance album category in 2005,” says Matt Colon, the former Chairman of the dance/electronic screening committee at the Recording Academy, and also the president of YMU Music and Steve Aoki’s longtime manager.
Indeed for the dance world, this is a big deal. While the collision of house, EDM, IDM, indie electronic and other dance subgenres have made for strange nominee bedfellows over the years, nowhere has the Grammys’ dance/electronic culture war been so acute as with pop dance (or “dance pop,” as the genre is more commonly referred to), the style that rides the line between the two genres with big melodies, center-of-attention vocals and traditional pop structures. In 2005, for example, Britney Spears’ “Toxic” competed with The Chemical Brothers’ “Get Yourself High” for best dance/electronic recording. Spears won.
With the addition of the best pop dance category for 2024, the Grammys are essentially creating a new home for pop-centric dance music at the awards. In doing so, the academy is providing an official space for these kinds of artists while preserving its other two dance/electronic genres for artists and recordings from the more traditional dance/electronic world.
“It was much needed,” says Colon, “because there should be a place for commercial artists who are doing dance songs and dance artists who are making more commercial-leaning music… I think everybody recognizes there’s a difference between what The Chainsmokers or Zedd or Steve [Aoki] or Calvin Harris do, versus what SBTRKT or Mura Masa do.”
“In the same way that rock has many different categories, there is the same need for electronic — as it is a diverse overarching umbrella with many distinct genres,” adds TOKiMONSTA, who was nominated for best/dance electronic album in 2019.
Better representing the size and diversity of the dance world has been a mission for voting members of the dance music community for 25 years, since the genre was incorporated into the awards in 1998 with the addition of best dance/electronic recording. The issue has become particularly resonant in recent years, as house, techno, IDM and other “underground” genres have become greater mainstream forces.
“Genres like house and techno adhere to specific traits that can almost at times be anti-pop,” says TOKiMONSTA’s manager Lewis Kunstler. “I believe dance artists felt being included with pop electronic songs [made] it difficult for people to regard their music to the degree their music deserves.”
The creation of nominee fields that accurately reflect what’s going on in dance has been a particular challenge following the 2021 removal of the Grammys’ nominations review committees. These committees employed a panel of experts (rather than popular vote) to ensure nominations in the two dance/electronic categories accurately reflected the sprawling global scene. General sentiment is that the dance/electronic nominations haven’t been as accurate as possible since their removal.
(To wit, these committees were put in place in the dance/electronic fields in 2013 as a protective mechanism following that year’s infamous nomination for Al Walser, a little-known Los Angeles DJ who was nominated for best dance/electronic recording alongside heavy hitters Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex, Calvin Harris and Avicii.)
The nominations review committee is different from the dance/electronic screening committee, which employs a panel of dance-world experts to review submissions to the two dance categories that may be better suited elsewhere. This committee has, historically, been vexed by dance pop music.
“It was always a struggle with pop artists that leaned dance,” Colon says. “A song had a four on the floor beat, so it was submitted to dance, even though it was just a traditional pop song with all the hallmarks of a pop song… That kind of stuff tended to be shot down [by the screening committee] because the moment those get in, they win by popularity vote. You saw that with Beyoncé last year: Not that she didn’t create a dance album, but the moment there’s a name like that [they tend to win due to name recognition] — because the dance categories are voted on by the entire voting academy.”
While pop royalty like Madonna, Spears, Janet Jacket and Kylie Minogue have all been nominated in the dance/electronic categories, the genres became more explicitly dance/electronic-oriented following the EDM boom of the early 2010s — although the pop structures inherent to EDM presented their own challenges.
“Suddenly you had traditional dance artists creating pop-dance songs and sometimes creating straight-up pop songs, then submitting those to the category and getting offended or upset — sometimes justifiably so — when they didn’t get [approved for] the category,” says Colon. “That has been the largest focus of the screening committee, deciding what is dance and what isn’t, when you have an artist like Steve Aoki or a Tiësto or whomever making a song that straddles the line between dance and pop. It’s been a huge, huge battle internally, and oftentimes it goes either way. The committee tries to stay consistent, but it’s tough.”
It’s notable that the dance pop addition follows the 65th Annual Grammy Awards this past February, as 2023 marked an acutely conflicted year for dance/electronic music at the awards. Many in the dance world celebrated the fact that the genre’s best album award was presented on the live telecast for the first time ever, giving nominees including ODESZA, Diplo, RÜFÜS DÜ SOL and Bonobo a celebrated moment in primetime.
But more controversial was the likely reason behind this telecast inclusion — Beyoncé, who was nominated for (and won), both dance/electronic awards for her house-oriented album Renaissance and its ’90s house revival lead single, “Break My Soul.” Beyoncé’s inclusion in these genres was the subject of sharp debate amongst members of the dance music community, some of whom felt Renaissance was more pop than dance.
A similarly spicy conversation happened regarding the David Guetta/Bebe Rexha track “I’m Good (Blue),” which this year was nominated in the best dance/electronic recording category despite many voters feeling the song — which samples Eiffel 65’s 1998 pop smash “Blue” — is overtly pop.
Per the academy, the new pop dance category recognizes “tracks and singles that feature up-tempo, danceable music that follows a pop arrangement. Eligible pop dance recordings also feature strong rhythmic beats and significant electronic-based instruments with an emphasis on the vocal performance, melody and hooks.”
Thus, the pop dance recording category eases conflict by creating space for dance tracks forged with the pop melodies and structures — which have always been an element of dance/electronic music, and which remain a dominant force in dance in the post-EDM era. (The addition is also a win in that it earns dance/electronic a generally greater presence at the Grammys, via the addition of five more nominees.) Colon predicts pop dance nominees that include “pop artists doing what at least passes as credible dance songs, and dance artists creating the heavily pop leaning songs.”
Importantly, this new category is also a recording rather than performance award, meaning that the track’s producers, engineers and mixers – people at the heart of the dance world — will be honored, along with whichever pop or pop dance star might also make the track.
For a genre that often gets less exposure at the Grammys than juggernauts like hip-hop, Latin, pop and rock, the best pop dance addition is a landmark victory in ensuring the sprawling, global electronic scene is better represented at the awards. Whether one is making dance pop radio bangers or underground drum ‘n’ bass, it’s a development all varieties of electronic artists can get behind.
A wave of Latin acts has arrived in Puerto Rico for the 2023 Premios Tu Música Urbano awards set to take place Thursday (June 15) at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot in San Juan. The fan-voted awards ceremony — which recognizes top urban artists as well as artists from other genres, such […]
The 2024 People’s Choice Awards will air on NBC and E! and stream on Peacock on Sunday, Feb. 18 — which puts the show right in thick of awards season for the first time in years.
Last year’s show, hosted by actor and comedian Kenan Thompson, aired on Dec. 6, 2022. The upcoming show marks the first time the show will have aired in the first quarter of the year since 2017 (when it aired on Jan. 18) and the first time it will have aired in February or March since 1996 (March 10, 1996).
The show will air at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT from the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif. This marks the first time the telecast will stream live on Peacock.
The show aired on CBS from 1975-2017, moved to E! in 2018, and has aired on NBC and E! simultaneously since 2021.
The two-hour show, which dubs itself “the only awards show powered by the people,” will honor fan favorites in movies, television, music and pop culture. The eligibility period for nominees is Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2023.
“The mission of the People’s Choice Awards continues to be about giving a voice to those whose opinions matter most – the people,” Cassandra Tryon, senior vice president, entertainment live events, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, said in a statement. “Moving the telecast to the heart of awards season and expanding our reach to Peacock’s audience creates a platform for the people’s voice to be heard louder than ever, giving stars and their fans an opportunity to celebrate together.”
The 2022 People’s Choice Awards bucked industry trends with year-over-year ratings growth on the broadcast network, and delivered 173 million total engagements across linear, digital and social platforms, according to the show.
Thompson has hosted the show the last two years. Last year, Lizzo received the People’s Champion Award; Shania Twain, the Music Icon Award; and Ryan Reynolds, the People’s Icon Award.
The telecast is produced by Den of Thieves with executive producers Jesse Ignjatovic, Evan Prager and Barb Bialkowski.
As previously announced, the inaugural two-hour People’s Choice Country Awards will air live Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. ET/PT across NBC and Peacock from the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville.